Jug fishing is a very effective way of catching fish, especially catfish. Very little or no experience is required. If a person can bait a hook and row a boat, he can catch fish by this method.
Jug fishing typically involves tying a line with a baited, weighted hook onto the handle of an empty plastic jug of the kind used for packaging milk, bleaching solution, and the like. The jug and line are set adrift in farm ponds, coves, creeks, on lakes, in inlets, and on backwaters of rivers and streams. Rapid bobbing or running of the jug indicates a fish is hooked. The fisherman rows his boat to the jug, retrieves the fish, rebaits the hook and returns the jug to the water.
Many states allow up to 50 jugs per license holder. Handling such a large number of jugs in a boat requires great care to avoid tangling of the lines, both when launching them, and when retrieving them after fishing is concluded.
It is time-consuming and inefficient to bait individual hooks as the jugs are placed in the water while simultaneously handling the oars and occasionally separating tangled lines.
At best, jug fishing has been a makeshift affair using floatation jugs not specifically designed for the purpose and being awkward for one or even two persons to handle in large numbers from a small boat.